Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

A Free People

THOUGH Britain may boast of her profligate regent,

Her crazy old king and his pageantry grand;

Her old Tory friends, to her mandates obedient,

In acting as foes to their own native land;

Yet as Whigs their own country will still think the most of,

In praising Columbia, sure I’m not wrong;

Columbia, containing what Europe can’t boast of—

I mean A FREE PEOPLE—the theme of my song.

Ye sycophant throng about honours who gabble,

Your lords, and your dukes, and your bishops profane,

Are fed and upheld by a blind, stupid rabble,

At once of our nature the curse and the stain:

But for us, truly bless’d with republican spirit,

We drive all such vermin to where they belong;

The passports to honour are virtue and merit,

Among A FREE PEOPLE—the theme of my song.

’Tis Freedom and Justice Columbians cherish:

Our rights as a nation are what we demand;

And sooner will Whigs like Leonidas perish,

Than live to take insults at Tyranny’s hand;

And in Europe not only, but all the world over,

Shall Fame spread the tidings with emphasis strong,

That tyrants in vain have used every endeavour

To enslave A FREE PEOPLE—the theme of my song.

Then let not Columbians, the contest before us,

Contemplate with doubts or base fears of the end;

For the God of our fathers will surely watch o’er us;

The offspring of patriots he’ll surely defend;

And let not proud Britain the idea cherish,

That our fathers are gone, and they’ll ravage our shore;

Our fathers left sons who will gloriously perish,

Or conquer the foe, as their sires did before.